Topic: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

First off a little information. I haven't played in quite a while, and I've just now started to get back into the game. It all started with the MTG: 2014 steam game download. I figured if it's in the 2014 game I should be able to play it. Boy was I wrong, turns out that when I unlocked all the cards for liliana's deck, and then did a deck manage there's a bunch of cards that are not standard. I've found that Grave Titan, Lord of the Undead, Undead Warchief, Corpse Baron and vampiric tutor are not reprinted in M14 and therefore I cannot use them. However they do make a nice sideboard to add for "Modern" games, all but the vampiric tutors as they are visions.

This is a modified version of that same zombie love deck to play in standard. I dumped all the cards that weren't in the standard block currently and changed around some things. Now instead of making my zombie tokens really really strong, I'm using creature control untill my horde becomes un-manageable and I swing them  for the win.

Deck is Mono-Black Zombie Token Zerg.

Win condition concept is "Control" till you can "Zerg" opponent with token army.

First Turn Gravecrawler, 4th turn "Tutor" for Endless ranks if it wasn't in your initial draw. Any other turn will be spent on opponent creature control. (boy do I miss my chainers edict and smothers.)

Any Input/Sugguestions would be appreciated as I've just returned from 14 years away from the game and I'm still dusting the cobwebs off.

Here is the link.
http://deckbox.org/sets/426731?v=v

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

Info I lack that someone else may have:

Is MonoBlack a viable deck now-a-days?

What does black currently have to "Mana Ramp" for big beasties if they're recommended to be used?

Are there any Planeswalkers worth putting in here?

If this is a scrub/noob direction I'm headed in, what direction would you take for playing ante games to win cards?

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

Are you looking to play standard like FNM?  If so then you need cards from the RTR block as well as M14.  It's probably getting too late to pick up stuff from innistrad unless you want to play seriously in PTQs etc over the next few months.

Mono colors in general are not viable in Standard right now.  Most of the best cards are multicolor and with the mana fixing available there's no reaason not o play more than one color.  2 color decks are viable.  3 color decks are the norm.  RDW has some potential but even most people will splash green or white in the red decks.

If you don't mind doing a little research there are a few decks in standard you can look up right now. You can go to the Star City Games website decklists section to see lists for most of these.

GB - control, might offer the deck you want. More of a midrange deck really. 
WB/zombies - uses the gravecrawler and geralfs messenger.
Junk Tokens
Jund
Reanimator
RB Zombies - aggro deck

As for your sepecific deck.  need to get down to 60 cards. Traditionally gravecrawler and messenger are played with sac outlets like cartel aristocrat and blood artist for extra damage.

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

Piranha wrote:

Info I lack that someone else may have:

Is MonoBlack a viable deck now-a-days?

What does black currently have to "Mana Ramp" for big beasties if they're recommended to be used?

Are there any Planeswalkers worth putting in here?

If this is a scrub/noob direction I'm headed in, what direction would you take for playing ante games to win cards?


To speak directly to your questions:

1) Mono-black is becoming increasingly viable with the release of M14.  It might not be tier-one (or winning major tournaments) but there are definitely a lot of options to have some fun.  The zombies route will likely take a hit once Innistrad rotates, but there are still plenty of options given the wealth of removal at your disposal.

2) Black really lost the mana-ramping abilities when Dark Ritual went away (believe me, as someone who used to LOVE the T1 Ritual into Erg Raiders with Unholy Strength, I was sad to see it wasn't standard legal).  That being said, there are a few options for black "ramping" via Crypt Ghast and Liliana of the Dark Realms, but with both at the four drop, you really don't end up actually "ramping" into anything without adding other colors.  I mean if you're interested this is a fringe deck, but one that looks like a LOT of fun to play that uses the Crypt Ghasts (and Clones of them) to give you a TON of mana to extort and cast Griselbrand (see the decklist here: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles … ide-combo/).

3) The only black PW really seeing play is Liliana of the Veil, although I suspect that will change with the arrival of Theros (both because Little Lily will rotate out, but also because black is due for a new PW.  But that's just speculation on my part.  Personally, I wouldn't stress PWs if you're going mono-black as you can be doing lots of other things.  Additionally, Lily otV is EXPENSIVE and about to rotate - aka, not worth picking up this late in the game.

4) For playing ante... good luck finding people to play that way.  All the old ante cards are banned from all forms of competitive play.  BUT, if you ARE playing for ante... not much beats the good ole Contract from Below.

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

I completely missed the ante part of the question.  Ewwwww.... tongue

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

Well to be honest, I'm on the fence if I wanna go full force and get back into the game and play competitively (tourneys and whatnot). My old library is extensive but magic has changed soo much in the time I have been away. When I played I used to be able to look forward to upcoming sets because 3/4 of my mono black was reprinted with a splash of new cards just to make things more interesting. now I get as far as knowing I want a first turn duress, and a 4th turn tutor and everything beyond that point is so convoluted. I've broken apart and rebuilt this prototype so many times, but it never seems to do much of anything. I manage to get out a first turn grave crawler and its flounder around from there till turn 4 when I can either tutor for an endless ranks, or struggle being mana screwed and have to worry when I'll get enough mana to play something.

The information about the planes walker you mentioned is appreciated.

And as for ante games, it's more of a I'll put up one of my old valuables for one of the new valuables so I'm more or less looking for something I can stomp someone's face in with and walk away happy with my new rare or whatever was ante'd. That way I can get in the game faster.

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

Piranha wrote:

And as for ante games, it's more of a I'll put up one of my old valuables for one of the new valuables so I'm more or less looking for something I can stomp someone's face in with and walk away happy with my new rare or whatever was ante'd. That way I can get in the game faster.

http://deckbox.org/sets/428218

Here is a black/red deck that me and a few friends have been trying to get going, crypt ghast and griselbrand as previously mentioned are 2 of the core mono black cards.

That being said, mono black (or minor variations such as this) are not really "ante" capable at this time.
It's also mostly because "ante" is a lost format/playstyle.

You're better off trying to trade some of your older cards for value into the newer modern era if you're looking to be competitive without putting in extra money, but ultimately, it really depends what you have laying around.

Profile/Tradelist/Wishlist  <(^_^)>  Favorite Card: Chains of Mephistopheles

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

Piranha wrote:

And as for ante games, it's more of a I'll put up one of my old valuables for one of the new valuables so I'm more or less looking for something I can stomp someone's face in with and walk away happy with my new rare or whatever was ante'd. That way I can get in the game faster.

Man if you have older valuable cards just trade.  Sorry, but ante is just dumb that's why people don't play it any more.  Chances are you won't be stomping anyone's face if you're just getting back into the game.

Tutoring really isn't a game plan anymore.  I know it was great back in the day, ( I played too, in the mid/late 90s) but that just slows you down now.  The majority of the formats are just playing good cards in your deck and drawing into the answers you need.  90% of the tutor effects are too expensive for the format. The power of spells has been ratcheted down a lot since then.

If you want to play competitively, you should watch some streams of competitive players and go to reddit.com/r/spikes and read some of the posts there about the metagame.

IMO, the very best thing you can do since you've been out for a while is to get in and play some limited format events.  Draft/sealed.  Get back into the game slowly.  You really need to get a grasp on the current meta game and it sounds like you need some help.  Get to know the people in your area. Find out what you like in the current meta and work towards a deck you want to play.  Chances are anything you're thinking of playing based on your experience in the past will be lacking. Just shooting straight with you, if you walk up to any mildly competitive event using the strategies I've heard you'll walk away disappointed.

Last edited by elpablo (2013-07-16 17:10:24)

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

i appreciate all the info.

in the short time i've been back and reading, I've gone through probably about a couple thousand posts so far of research. The game more or less has turned into who can get into their win concept by turn 4 or less. I've been playing online with magic workstation but it would seem that that has changed too. I've played against all types of fail, which seems to include rude people, impatient people, people who have no idea what they're doing and lastly people who will do anything to win.

I have pretty much resorted to sharpies and lands to make a couple proxy decks. I'm trying to avoid "NetDecking" because I'm a firm believer of building versus just downloading a decklist of someone who's better than myself. But the more I try to stick to the core values I had back when I played the more i'm being punished so to speak. I can officially say I'm sad to see that ante games have gone away, but I guess it was inevitable with the way the community and game has changed.

I'll go ahead and keep researching what people are using for their win conditions. I will also be keeping an eye out for what new things people will be using, Mainly because I can't see paying anything over 10 dollars for a planeswalker this close to rotation. I think it may just be wise for me to work on a modern deck for the time being that way I can make sure the money I'm going to invest into a deck will be for something I will actually get to play for a while.

I like the deck that was linked, from what i can tell it looks like it's a lot of burn to control the little weenies that people are playing till you can get your win combo on the table. Is that accurate? or have I managed to overlook something?

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

With the deck I listed the liliana of the veil isn't all too necessary, it's just a phenomenal card and played in countless decks that use black. That being said, even though it is rotating it will not be significantly dropping in price at it is played in multiple modern decks.

As for the win con of the deck itself, the whole point is to utilize the potential of crypt ghast. Currently it's only a $2 card because no one's managed to incorporate it into a tier 1 or 2 deck (this is developing into that and has done decently at competitive FNM's). The deck slows down aggro decks so they dont win on T4-T5 through an early burn followed up by a board wiping mutilate. (So yea, your description is more or less accurate)

Liliana of the Dark Realms and Crypt Ghast help flood your mana pool to make rakdos's return and devil's play an effective T5 or T6 play.

Against control we're working on finalizing the sideboard, basically remove all of the mutilates, doom blades, and burn spells (keep rakdos's return and devil's play), up the planeswalker count, and then add cards like corrupt and duress to the mix.

If you do test it out let me know how it runs. Or if you find suggestions to make for it.

Profile/Tradelist/Wishlist  <(^_^)>  Favorite Card: Chains of Mephistopheles

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

Here is the deck with a potential side board:

http://deckbox.org/sets/435741

Profile/Tradelist/Wishlist  <(^_^)>  Favorite Card: Chains of Mephistopheles

Re: Returning after 14yrs. Need help with a concept deck plz.

So far I think I'm grasping a bit more than I'm even realizing. When I used to play, I had one deck that followed along with current trends and one that nobody will ever expect. I'm currently building another concept deck that nobody will expect. It is basically a vamp deck, with vampires that grow when they do damage or something hits the graveyard, And lots of gain control spells. I've tested it against a couple hardcore decks and since its something that's not from the "NEW" game, they're not sure how to deal with it. The concept is simple, bide my time playing all low cost vamp weenies, while holding counter spells and creature-jack spells. Then when I can read my opponent when he goes to lay down his win combination I'll jack them and sac them to my vampires disrupting their game and returning a formidable counter attack. That's the main strategy with my win condition being based around the bloodline vampire that transforms for 2/2 to all vampires and flying. I'm still trying to trim down the deck tho, all the old cards had the effects on them. Now I'm stuck at 70 cards because of needing 2 and 3 cards to get the effect of what used to be on the cards. I.e enchants and spells that return cards from graveyard to hand, then replay instead of the control cards having flashback.